Tue 10th Sep

The second of the Ancient Mariner series was greeted by a wet evening but with wind, and a forecast of more to come, something of a change from recent weeks.  6 boats ventured out and course L5 up and down the Shandon shore was selected with Catriona as on the water race officer.

It soon became apparent that the wind, and more especially the tide was not uniform across the Loch.  A tidy start with Catriona a few seconds early and having to bear away down the line allowed Dione and Halcyone to make the best of it.  The decision was then inshore for least-bad tide or offshore for the best wind; Dione, Thia & Hermes went inshore, Halcyone, Luna and Catriona (after a foray inshore) went out.  Inshore payed off, although Halcyone managed to find an area of good tide that served her well.

At the windward mark (A) the tide was predominant and all boats had to fight more tide than they were expecting; the latter boats having something of a torrid time as the wind eased in that location separating them from the front of the fleet.  A decent spinnaker run, for most, to the Leeward mark (G) saw some bunching at the mark with Hermes just getting mark room inside Catriona then the beat to the finish.  Dione stayed inshore, Halcyone offshore in her narrow strip of favourable tide, going so well that she almost omitted to pass the finish mark on the correct side and in returning, slipped from 2nd to 4th.

Despite the relatively short race, it was stopped after one round because of fading light, forecasting of more wind, the tail end boats being a little way back and because Hermes asked for 1-round only.

Results: Dione, Thia, Hermes, Halcyone, Catriona, Luna